Humanities Chance
by Cornelius Scipio
Summary: The crew of SDF-1 escape from the Zentraedi, but end up a little farther than expected. Only to land in the backyard of another conflict just beginning.
1. Chapter 1

**Humanities Chance**

**Robotech/BSG Crossover**

**Author's Foreword: **I have read a few stories of this type and would like to put out my own version. However, with my story it is mostly going to be AU other than the base idea of each universe. If you don't like idea of this then don't read it. One of the things I have done, is increased the timeframe from the crash of SDF-1 to the arrival of the Zentraedi. There are other changes as well, such as timeframes, names, places and ships to both universes.

A/N - Updates to spelling and format issues. Tech notes added at end.

* * *

It almost felt like it was yesterday, that fateful day 15 years ago when the visitor crash-landed on what was to become Macross Island in the Pacific ocean.

The middle of the Global war saw the arrival of the Visitor; this was not just an asteroid that crashed upon Macross Island but an alien ship from a warrior race some 18meters in height. This brought a stoppage to the war and a younger Captain Gloval his first encounter with the aliens that were to dominate his life in preparation for their arrival to reclaim this ship.

The world came together over this ship, instead of continuing the insanity and reasoning of the Global war brought the best and brightest to go over each and every centimeter of the ship. When the first inspection teams examined the alien ship, they discovered massive rents in its armor and a warping of the lower keel, which appeared to take the brunt of impact. It was decided to cut away the sections of the ship that were too badly damaged and expand the vessel to almost double its original length. The examination of the materials and the equipment found inside helped Humanity advance in leaps and bounds.

Construction, material science, computers, and other sciences were advanced faster than one could believe. Even the once far-fetched ideas of faster than light travel, fusion power and shields were brought to light from the technologies gleamed inside.

One of the things that was created was the fantastic birth of Robotechnology; a science that melded man and machine in miraculous ways and created a way of possibly defending Earth from the aliens. The creator of this technology Dr. Lang speculated of how operators would be able to pull off maneuvers of incredible feats that would put current fighters to shame.

Military weaponry went from chemical propulsion to using magnetic rail tech, and the first practical laser weaponry that could damage material samples of the ship were now standard for all branches of the world military. Armor for troops went from Kevlar vests and ceramic plates to powered suits that could absorb the equivalent of a 120mm round of force and still keep the soldier alive, a little worse for wear, but still alive. Armored tanks soon became incredibly more massive 500-ton tanks and Destroids that were created, having five times the fire rate of a M1A2 and power equivalent to the power of 25kilotons per shot.

The world governments considered covering up the true size and threat of the unknown aliens, but a group of dissenters to this agenda fought back and won the right to tell the world. Stating that it would cause the world to unite even further and speed up repairs and the reverse engineering of technologies found in the Visitor. By late 2000 the beginnings of the United World Government started, ensuring that all would have a fair say in how to use the ship, and the steps to take in protecting the Earth.

By 2003, the four-year anniversary of the crash landing Earth began the deployment of the first capable SSTO's launchers and spaceships. With the Protoculture power plants that were deciphered from the wreck, they were able to travel the solar system in months vice years, bringing a boom in the lifestyle and resources to the planet even further accelerating the advancement.

Late 2003 early spring of 2004 saw the beginning of the massive space dry dock and space station in orbit of Earth, the first permanent Lunar and Mars bases. Each first crewed with the top scientists and engineers to ensure that Humanity would not be entirely destroyed if an attack came. Then the Jupiter and Saturn gas mines and early warning stations came online. Giving Humanity at least a few hours warning of the Aliens arrived, along with the added bonus of detecting any asteroids or comets heading towards the Earth.

2005 through 2008 saw further development of Earth and the solar system with the completion of the asteroid miners' fleet of 100 vessels bringing in materials for the ever-expanding fleet, bases, defenses, and the on-going repairs of the Visitor. With the completion of the space station, they were able to increase the build rate from three ships to 15 ships a year. Over sixty million people now lived and worked in space by the end of 2008, with the UEG thinking of creating massive orbital bases and colonies out of Nickel-Iron asteroids some expected to be over 10 kilometers in diameter.

In the end of 2009 saw the launch of the first fully human built starship, using an example of the fold drive it first traveled from Earth to the Dwarf Planet Pluto. Once the testing was complete, the UEG planned a two-year trip to map and examine the 50 closest stars. This was a twofold mission; first to gain knowledge and experience operating away from earth's resource base; and second to deploy the second-generation sensor probes in the off chance of detecting the aliens prior to arrival at earth.

During 2011, some of the final touches were placed on the newly expanded visitor and testing of the integrated systems began. Which during one of the inspections, Dr. Lang's team discovered the program conversion between the two systems was generating random errors preventing accurate, repeatable results for reliable operation. The UEG and Dr. Lang's team determined that only a full rewrite with double redundancy in the computer systems coding and equipment were the only way to ensure everything would work right. They would end up taking another full two years in coding and testing getting it just right.

In the winter of 2013 the Earth and the United Earth Government compiled a report of the amount resources, personnel, and military equipment readily available to call upon incase the aliens arrived. There were over 100 million living in space among the various habitats, asteroids, the Moon, Mars and the outer planets stations. A total of 35 habitats, or orbital fortresses in and around the Moon and Earth, each had two copies of the main guns from the SDF along with thousands of the combat lasers on their surface. The grand fortress placed halfway between the Earth and Moon was a staggering 15km in diameter. It had its own factories, farms, and two UN Space bases, with the ability to repair a ship the size of the SDF or 10 of the ARMD carriers that was nearing completion.

The final touches was put in place and the SDF-1 was finally fully crewed and stocked with weapons, supplies and materials to repair the ship to a minimal extent. Some of the top military personnel in their fields vied for the chance to command the ship. The honor finally went to Captain Gloval, the man that was first on station when the visitor landed. The planned commissioning date and launch was to be the 5th of February 2014.

Commissioning day was also that fateful day the Aliens finally arrived in the solar system. An initial probe folded into high orbit of Earth that surprised the military in the operation of said drive. Surprisingly, even after all the modifications and repairs to SDF-1, the ships original programming took over, charging the main gun and firing at the scouts. Thus, beginning what was to be called the First Space War.

After the initial battle, ordering the civilians of Macross Island into their shelters, and initial bombardment of the island. SDF-1 took off, losing half of its anti-gravity drives. They used traditional rockets to lift off. Without the gravity drives they were unable to completely leave the atmosphere. Leading to that fateful order of using the Fold drive within the atmosphere; only four kilometers above the island.

"**JUMP!**" As the bright light of Fold drive enveloped SDF-1, Macross Island the surrounding vessels, and half of a light destroyer that was coming to drop more assault pods to capture Zor's former ship.

* * *

SSTO - Single stage to Orbit launch vehicles. A dream of many was finally brought to fruition from technology discovered onboard the visitor. It enabled lighter and stronger materials that could handled the stresses and heat from launches and landings safely. Allowing the UEG to move mass amounts of materials into space and built first Space station Freedom and then others until they were experienced enough and started construction of Space Station Liberty.

Asteroid Miners Fleet - The backbone of the Solar systems economy, some two thousand modified SSTO's. Since the opening of the solar system due to SSTO's, fusion power systems and gravity induction drives, they have mined and moved millions of tones of materials from asteroid belt to the inner system, helping to switch the planet from a planetary-based manufacturing to a spaced based one. Allowing habitats and stations throughout the system to be constructed. The most recent project they have been involved with the moving and construction of the Asteroid habitats; which have been used to house and supply the growing UN Space Fleet and the ever-growing amount of people that have chosen to move off the planet and into space.

Human FTL ships - The first of which was commissioned in 2009, named the Icarus. It was the first of many ships that was used to explore the areas surrounding Sol space. Capable of making a maximum five light year fold jump due to the limitations in supplying a large enough power supply and the rough amalgamation of the Fold drive matrix. It is expected with data results from the testing of SDF-1's fold drive after commissioning that scientist can improve upon the purely human built version, expanding the range capabilities.

Fold Sensor Buoys - A derivative of the Fold drive and modern AEGIS sensors, it was accidentally discovered when testing and construction of the first human built fold drives in 2006-07 time-frame. Instrumentation from the tests showed a distinct echo in the drive harmonics. This was extrapolated that was a return of real space and fold space in real time up to 2AU for the setup. Further experimentation allowed an increase of range giving operators the ability to see the whole solar system with the first generation buoys. By the time of Icarus launch, the second-generation buoys were ready with an increased range of two light years and a vector discrimination of 0.002 arc seconds at that range.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N - Updated the chapter spelling errors, and a few other things that I noticed when re-reading. Added Tech notes at the end. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 2 - What the hell just happened?

"**Jump!" **Was the last word heard by the crew of SDF-1.

On the outer edges of a double binary star system, a sphere of white light appeared then vanished. In the wake of the disappearing light, the remnants of an island and its surrounding water appeared. Amongst this field of debris, were four ships. Two modern aircraft carriers that were providing the security screen for the launch ceremony, an alien ship that was sheared in half by the fold, and one, a giant ship that dwarfed the others.

**SDF-1 Bridge**

The bridge crew uncovered their eyes as the light dissipated from the Fold Hyperspace jump, widening in horror as they see the remains of Macross Island, and the darkness of space around them.

"Bozhe moi!" Captain Gloval curses. "Commander Hayes am I seeing this correctly or am I dreaming?"

"Captain… That is Macross Island. It seems our jump engines are more powerful than we thought." Commander Lisa Hayes replies. "Oh my! We are not in orbit of the moon as planned Captain; actually I can't seem to find anything that indicates that we are even in our own solar system anymore."

The rest of the bridge crew gasp as the last of Lisa's words leave her mouth, Sammy the youngest of the bridge 'bunnies' begins to cry.

"Captain I recommend that we send out the rest of the air wing to search for survivors, as well to take care of any more of the alien invaders that hitched a ride with us." Lieutenant Commander Claudia Grant stated.

"Da, make it so Commander" Captain Gloval said, "And get me Dr. Lang, we need to find out what has happened. We do not know when the enemy will reappear, and we need to be battle ready as quickly as we can."

"Yes sir." All three-bridge bunnies replied as they set off on the tasks of contacting the various department heads and reporting to the Captain.

**Macross Island surrounding space same time**

Rick Hunter and Linn Minmei look out at the expanse of space as the light from the transition clears. Linn wraps her arms around Rick's neck, choking him, and knocking his helmet down covering his eyes as she realizes that they are in space. Coughing from being nearly strangled to death by the girl he asks. "Linn, why are you freaking out so badly?" Wordlessly she points out the cockpit window. "Woah….. Is that what I think it is? We're out in space!" Minmei nods her head and randomly mumbling. "How in the world did that happen?! OH Crap! That is Macross Island as well and what looks like some of the military ships out there. Man, big brother is so going to be angry that I didn't stay in one spot."

Rick notices the SDF-1 launching more of the strange fighters that he was in before. _Hmmm… I wonder if I follow them, we can get back into the ship_. "Minmei, I'm going to try to follow those jets, maybe we can get back inside the ship. Ok?"

"Ok Rick, I'll trust you. I hope that my family is okay," Minmei says. _This is way too scary, not something that I ever wanted to do. Even though this boy is kind of cute and did save my life a little while ago. I still don't like this. _"Why can't we just head back to the White Dragon?"

Looking at his control console, Rick sees mass amounts of warnings, noticing the compass randomly spinning. "Minmei I don't have a way to find out which direction to go to find it. The ship would be the best place to find out about your family. I bet you they are even starting to pull the shelters to the ship so that they can take care of everyone. "

"Oh Rick, I didn't think about that. We'll go with your idea, it sounds good." The first smile appearing on her face since this started.

Blushing, Rick tells Linn "Hold on, I'm going to start the rockets I have to get us moving towards the ship. It's going spin a little as we are going in the wrong direction." The rockets start pushing them back into the seat. After they began moving, Rick starts one side and another to get the stunt flyer pointed in the right direction. As the flyer moves toward the SDF-1, Rick looks around some more, wondering what had happened and where they are.

**Skull One prepping for launch same time**

Commander Roy Fokker was being prepped for launch once again, along with another eight squadrons prepping for take-off from the flight deck. Their current assignment from Claudia was to eliminate any remaining enemy mecha survivors from the attack.

They had just completed the Hyperspace-Fold, and pri-fly said they had made a clean escape to outer space. However, what they had failed to mention and what Skull one found out as he cleared the launch bay, the darkness of space and no presence of the moon, or First fleet anywhere in sight. Questioning what was going on, his jaw dropped in astonishment as he saw remains of Macross Island and the two ships that were supposedly guarding the island in space with him. "What the hell is going on?!" Pulling up the tactical channel "Claudia you said that we had escaped, but you didn't say that we pulled the island into space with us!"

"Roy, we pulled a lot more than that with us. We also managed to slice an enemy ship in half with the fold." Roy's face showed nothing but astonishment at the statement. "We need you and the squadrons to clear out our space before we can even think of taking care of the Island and the carriers, along with that alien ship. It's the first piece of semi-working tech from the aliens we've got. Think you can handle them now that we aren't being attacked by their fleet fly boy?"

"You know I can, but there needs to be some explaining when we pull in. Got that Claudia?"

"Yes sir!" Claudia answered with a smirk and a mock salute. Roy grinned at her and shut off the tac-channel, opening the squadron channels relaying the orders to the rest of the squad leads.

The 144 Veritech fighters formed up into their respective squadrons and moved forward with all intent to eliminate the remaining enemy fighters. In clearing out the last of the enemy, what somewhere calling 'battle ostriches', Roy ordered the squadrons to cover the now 'space borne' ships and island, along with the sheared in half alien ship. Skull squadron making another pass of Macross Island before reporting back to Claudia.

_Oh boy, this is not something I was thinking of doing when I got up this morning. _Roy thought as he banked Skull one past what remained of the former air control tower with the rest of Skull flight following behind. The devastation of the island from both the attack and transition to space was something that many would not soon forget.

**Minutes after Zor's battle fortress Hyperspace-Folded from the planet**

Breetai stood there in astonishment, something that had not happened to him in many thousands of years, at the sheer audacity of the move made by the Micronians; folding a spaceship whilst in an atmosphere. Something that even the most insane of Zentraedi would never do, as it had the distinct possibility of destroying the vessel if not the planet it was attempted on. The shock wore off quickly as they detected the power signatures of fifty more of the Micronian ships, with hundreds of smaller ones which were the fighter craft heading in their direction. Along with an increase in the power signatures coming from what first appeared as smaller moons of the main world, which according to sensor readings now appeared to be battlestations, some of which were larger than his flagship.

"Exedore, we need to discover where they have taken the ship. We have not spent the past 15 mega-pulses searching for it, only to have it disappear once again from our grasp."

"Yes Commander. I would have not thought that any ship, even Zor's battle fortress could have done a space-fold within the atmosphere of a planet. It must have been something that the Micronians did in the rebuilding process." Looking over readouts of the brief battle, Exedores' eyes widen when he came upon the power levels recorded of the ship. "Commander Breetai, somehow these creatures have managed to increase the power levels of the ship by tenfold! That would be a possible explanation for how they managed to pull off the fold."

"That ship is, or was, a small battle-fortress of the fleet. It is now twice its original length with the power output of two battleships now. Well, that is something that we can figure out once we capture it later on. But, we need to continue our search and leave this world now as our bounty has vanished." Weapons fire from the human ships started incoming, and striking some of the larger ships, causing minor damage to most. Some of the smaller destroyers and frigates of the fleet felt the attack to a larger effect, having weaker shields than the larger ships started dying at first in ones and twos, then by the dozens when the first of the battlestations fired their BSPFG's.

"Though, I think that it is time we teach a lesson to these creatures for attacking the Zentraedi. All ships open fire!" As the ships of the Breetai's scout fleet open fire, they are shocked to find that the Aliens have shields installed upon their ships. The Human ships manage to deflect some of the pulse cannon fire, but the weight of some 100,000 ships firing upon them will wither any shield eventually. Within twenty seconds of fire, the first of the ARMD ships was destroyed, exploding with a spectacular explosion, leaving no hope for survivors.

The remaining ships start to go in an evasive pattern, trying to avoid enemy fire, but as these are some of the first generation Human spaceships, they lack the skills and experience to stand toe to toe. Another dozen ships soon follow their destroyed sister ship into the dark abyss. Those that managed to survive, start a retreating back behind the moon on the orders of Fleet Captain Anatole Leonard another volley of the human version of the pulse cannon and missiles towards the enemy before pulling back towards Earth on the orders of fleet captain Anatole Leonard.

"That will teach these creatures to try to stand up to the power of the Zentraedi" As Breetai gloated with the minor victory, Exedore continued to study the information that was gleamed from the battle, his face furrowed in deep concentration. "Fleet Hyperspace-Fold to 250 mega light pulses and we will continue our search for the battle-fortress." As if like one mind, the ships simultaneously fold out of what will soon become a troubling world for the Zentraedi.

Arriving at the designated point and receiving the status report of the fleet from the navigator. Breetai turns to Exedore still studying the results of battle, he starts Breetai asked his longtime friend "We are nearing the time limit that Dolza has given us in finding the missing battle-fortress. That last meeting with him was not very pleasant. He showed a deep anger towards our lack of results."

"Yes Commander, he was most upset with how the search continues." Frowning, Exedore continued, "I was going over some of the older records from the earliest times of the Zentraedi, and from what I was able to learn the creatures that we attacked and recovered the battle-fortress from are called Micronians. It is mentioned that none should go near them as they could bring about the destruction of the race."

"What! How can creatures as small as they are possibly destroy us!" Shaking his head at the thought of something small enough to be crushed under his foot could defeat one of his mighty warriors, Breetai continued. "We have battled across the stars for countless mega-pulses and have come across none that can defeat us. I want you to find out as much information as possible about them. Maybe the Masters were wrong about this, but without knowing more of what they had done with the battle-fortress we cannot possibly recover it in time."

Frowning once again, Exedore thought of the supposed logic of the Masters orders, one to know and understand your enemies to a point you know them better than they themselves, and the order to stay away from Micronians. This was most perplexing to him. "I will do as ordered. However, I would like to send a small scout ship back to the system we left to infiltrate the enemy and learn more. Maybe they will let slip where the battle-fortress has went, and will let us discover the whereabouts sooner."

"Good idea Exedore, make it so. In the meantime we shall start by sending scout fleets out amongst the local stars to see if there are any signs of the ship."

**30 minutes post Hyperspace Fold**

Three people were sitting around the ready room table looking at a steady stream of incoming reports from all over the ship, a ready carafe of coffee sat between them, and two mugs of already half-drunken coffee with a steady haze of smoke arising from the Captains' pipe. Sammy delivering the latest stack of reports to her superior officers, she crinkled her nose at the smoke and gave a stern look towards the Captain. Gloval shirked from the glare and put out his pipe with an apologetic smile, whilst other officers continually streamed in and out delivering more reports as the three officers continued to develop an overall picture of the situation. Captain Gloval, Commanders Hayes and Grant continue to write notes and giving orders as situations arise, whilst all looking over at the constant flow of reports coming in from the department heads, and Dr. Lang.

A frazzled LCDR Grant speaks up, starting a conversation that all do not want to hear "So far sir, the DC teams have managed a temporary seal on the holes created by the gravity drives, and the damage from battle that we took prior to taking off. Along with, Skull reported has just reported in that the last of the enemy fighters have been destroyed, any intact and recoverable debris are being towed to the secondary hanger bay." Claudia said, "Skull and Wolf squadrons are surveying Macross Island, Blue and Sepia are each covering a carrier respectfully, and Vermilion is doing the flyby on the part of the alien ship that we dragged with us. Three other squads are providing early warning patrol and will be rotated out in about four hours."

"Has anyone provided an explanation as to why the alien ship did not explode when it was brought with us Commander Hayes?" Gloval asked, "Also how bad is the damage to shelters on the island, and to the carriers as well?"

As she just finished looking over the most recently received stack of the preliminary reports, Lisa replied. "It seems sir that we managed to have caught it in the Hyperspace-Fold just forward of the main power plant. That is what some of the engineers are giving as a possible explanation as to why it might not have exploded, but we won't be certain until security and engineering teams get onboard to investigate. Once we finish the fly-bys of the alien ship, we will send in a security and research teams to see what we can find out." Sighing heavily she continued, "For the carrier's sir, both carriers look to be salvageable with minimal damage to them. Sadly, from the pre-lim reports from the carriers XOs' is that they lost contact with both the bridge and pri-fly watch teams. They expect them to be dead as the DC teams onboard said the glass blew out when we folded, due to the glass not being space rated. Also they lost all crew that was not inside, or sealed in their gear for condition one." Both Gloval and Claudia shook their heads in the pointless deaths. "On the good side is that a few dozen or so more that are still floating around with life signs, and they are in process of pulling them in."

"For the shelters, we are still trying to get in contact with all of them. Those that have responded to the EMS, have said they are in good condition, with just a few minor bumps and bruises and no major medical emergencies to worry of as of yet. However, since we got a hold of the Governors shelter he has been on the line constantly making demands. I've had Ensign Porter put him on hold for now as we sort out this mess. I would like to vent his shelter just to get rid of that fat bastard. He has been nothing but an annoyance since we did." She sighed. "He did bring up one good point before we muted his transmission; he asked when we are going to be bringing them aboard the SDF-1."

Fuming, Captain Gloval growled out "This is a warship, not a cruise liner to live upon his whim; we could be destroyed by that alien armada with everyone coming onboard if we took them." Sighing, "I would almost say vent his shelter or at least jostle him around a little when we bring them onboard." Rubbing his chin in thought. "Claudia is their room in the secondary cargo bay to put the residents, and maybe even set up a temporary shelter for them?"

"If we get the ground Destroid division in on the repairs instead of point defense, and moving the miscellaneous supplies, and assisting with bringing the shelters in, we should have all of them in about two days to about a week or so." Claudia said with an evil grin to her face. "Now if we want to move a little faster, we could open the cargo bay to space and just shove them in."

All three laughed at the thought of the Governor bouncing around his shelter and screaming like a scared little child that he was.

"Ah… Ok. As much as that would be entertaining Commander, we must still accommodate our civilian leaders. Go forward with the plans of using the cargo bay, and try to expedite the moving in of our guests." Gloval said. "Has Dr. Lang given his report other than having his division heads give the basics Commander Hayes?

"No, not yet. When I last spoke to him he was working on trying to figure out what had occurred, also why the fold drives are not responding."

Looking at a newly received report from the Commo, "On other news; the report I have received from Lt. Young on our long-range external communications being restored, including the hyper-wave radio. Though what she reports seeing on the Comm bands is a mass amount of RF energy, and a type of radar pulses similar to the invaders."

"Some of the stuff is ranging from simple tracking beacons, to what seems to be voice, though we have no way of deciphering it as of yet, and encrypted voice traffic. She had this preliminary map made that is a first run of the signals we've detected from the four stars around us." Typing on her tablet and pulling up a display of surrounding space for all to see. "So far we have isolated some of the stronger signals around the two closest stars. These two larger spots seem to be planets, or large bases from the amount of signals coming from this star." Pointing to the closest star. "We seem are around 630 astronomical units away from this one and the other binary set is about 0.15ly distant, which is highly unusual from what we know about astronomy. The signals from that binary set are a bit more diffuse, giving us a bit more difficulty in isolating their sources. The astronomy section is pulling together some larger telescopes to see if we can get a better visual on any planets or fleets."

Both Gloval and Claudia look on in amazement as they see all four stars surrounded in dots indicating the transmission sources coming from every direction.

"My goodness, we are practically surrounded and totally defenseless!" Commander Grant calls out "Did we fold into the aliens' home system, instead of escaping from them?"

"So far it seems like we are in entirely different aliens' star system." Lisa said, "It seems they have colonized all four stars and if we are to believe the lesser concentrations of signals they have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of ships and space stations flying between each of these stars."

"If we are not to be mistaken, it seems that we have gone from one batch of aliens attacking our home world, to jumping into another's' backyard all together." Shaking his head and taking a deep breath from his pipe. "Bozhe moi! This is almost a worst situation than the Global Wars. If we are to get out of our current situation, our best bet would be to recover the civilians from Macross Island, and both carriers to add to our armament." Both officers taking a moment to think about the captain's statement and nodding their heads in agreement. "Try getting a hold of Dr. Lang and see if there is a way to attach them to us, also tell him to hurry up with his reports. We can hope that these aliens would be friendly but we cannot be certain."

**Rick and Minmei near SDF-1: 30 minutes post fold**

At that moment the stunt flyer nears the SDF-1, Rick wiped the sweat off his brow and huffed out. _Wow, that was a lot more work than I thought getting us closer to the ship. At least we avoided the fight with more of those strange craft. I really don't want to be in another fight again. _"Minmei? Minmei?" finally waking up the sleeping girl.

"Huh, What is it Rick?" Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and noticing that they were next to the giant ship; that was always in the background of her life on Macross Island, now brought into sharp focus once again, as hope raises in her eyes the chance to save her life.

"We made it to the ship, but our radio is still out, so I still can't call for help. We'll just have to look for a way to get inside, 'cause I can't see where the jets came out of."

"So, why can't we get some help from one of those strange robot thingies again?" Linn said questioningly

"Linn, I just said that we don't have a radio. I would have to go outside the flyer to fix it. And neither of us have a spacesuit to go into space." Rick harrumphed.

"I think I see a way into the ship," Minmei said pointing towards one of the now open hatches along the hull of the ship that were opened whilst SDF-1 was in process of removing cargo and placing items in preparation of moving the largest shelters inside the ship. The cargo hold that they had found was one that was not on the handlers list for any immediate usage; and just left alone for future expansion if needed.

Excitedly Rick replied, "Yes! That will work. We can land in there and close the hatch. Then we can find some way to get inside and help from the military."

"Yay! I'll see my aunt and uncle again!" Linn bubbled with cheer. Little did they both know that it would be almost a week before either one would see anyone else.

* * *

Tech Notes

**BSPFG** - The Battlestation Space Particle Force Gun, this is an upgraded and station mounted version of the main particle-canon now present on the SDF-1. When investigators and researchers first saw the specifications for this weapon in the computer files, they believed that there was a mistake in the translation software for the power output. Only to discover that this was a smaller version of the ones used on the aliens ships. When they stated building the Station sized version of this weapon it they decided to double the power capacitance along with installing more focusing units to enable a more focused beam that could also move off center axis, giving an increased offensive capabilities.

**Asteroid Space station Habitats** - An idea that has been thought of since the golden age of science fiction in the fifties to take an asteroid and hollow it out to make room for people to live in. With the technology discovered on SDF-1 it was decided to take a nickel-iron asteroid drill out a hole to the center then insert cometary ice inside then seal it back up while heating it with solar-powered lasers. This caused a ballooning effect which created a station of anywhere from five to fifteen kilometers in diameter depending on the initial size used. The largest one now created is the Zeus battle station which is home to the main UN Space yards. It is the largest one in the solar system with it being just over fifteen kilometers in diameter, and the ability to build and berth up to twenty ships, and enough room to house the encompassing personnel and equipment needed for operations.

**Hyper-Wave Radio** - Using a dedicated fold drive that does not truly transcend into fold space, though allowing it to still be accessed via dedicated equipment. It enables communications between two such devices within a fifty-light year distance instantaneously. Though the plans and difficulty in constructing the device limits every vessel in space having one and are only placed on the largest of ships such as command vessels or bases. There are plans to further refine the device to allow its placement on smaller vessels, along with future expansion plans by the UEG to setup deep space relays allowing communication between vessels and command that exceed the range of the Hyper-Wave radio.

**Shields (Magnetic Defense Shields)** - Constructed for defense against both incoming armament and deep space radiation, they are able to encompass a vessel or space station preventing damage through a means of manipulating the weak force, enabling a stressed band of gravity along the same lines as a neutron stars gravity field to encompass said shielded object so long as a continuous draw of power is available. The current drawback to these devices is the amount of power required of them, only stations and dedicated warships have been built with the appropriate generation capacity required.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N - Sorry about the delay in getting this out there for all of you to read. Life and work gets in the way, as everyone knows. Was having a bit of trouble figuring out where it was appropriate to end this chapter. Otherwise enjoy the read, leave comments and reviews so that I can improve and get more chapters out to all of you.

Tech Notes at the end.

Chi vi diamo dopo.

Here is Chapter 3 - Discoveries and Changes

**Earth – Charles de Gaulle Aircraft Carrier patrolling the area around what was once Macros Island in the Pacific Ocean, Cable News Network 15 minutes after SDF-1 disappeared**

The Aircraft Carrier Charles de Gaulle had at last finished maneuvering closer to the area of what was once Macross Island. They were recently stationed around 250 kilometers north of the island, marking a patrol area to ensure that no rouge threats came from either North Korea or anti-unification faction from Southeast Asia. When the attack started, they turned toward the island at full speed to enable assistance. Unfortunately, they were unable to reach SDF-1 in time to aid them. At first, they thought that the ship was destroyed until radiation counters on-board and patrolling Osprey read normal background levels. However, one good thing that did come about their arrival was the rescue of various fishermen and news agencies reporters in the air and on boats around the island. One of which was the famous Anderson Cooper, unlike his normal routine of being upfront and next to the current news subject at hand, was in the air at the time heading out to get a wide enough of angle shot of the battle and out of range of SDF-1's Space Fold, thereby avoiding being taken along with the island.

Now currently on the carrier, Anderson was rushing through prep to get back on air as other members of rescued news crews were in process of doing the same. His cinematographer and on scene director silently pointed to him and gave him his countdown. The light went red and a thumb up showing they were on air, Anderson took a breath and began his report. "This is Anderson Cooper reporting to you from the French Aircraft Carrier Charles de Gaulle in the Pacific Ocean where mere minutes ago an Alien force started attacking the SDF-1 during its launch ceremony. These spacecraft began to attack the area with what appeared to be pulse laser fire, and strange pod-like fighter craft. Shortly afterwards the SDF-1 took off, and a move commenced a Hyperspace-Fold maneuver in the atmosphere, I was told they were to meet up with the UN Space fleet in orbit of the moon. Their whereabouts are currently unknown along with Macross Island."

Interrupting Cooper's editorial, Soledad O'Brien said, "Wait. Wait a minute, you are telling us Anderson, that Macross Island and the SDF-1 has disappeared, and that no one knows where they are at this moment?"

"That's right Soledad. After the light flash from Fold jump cleared, it seems that both the Aircraft Carriers the Prometheus and Deadalus have disappeared as well. When they performed the fold just a few minutes ago, there was one of the Alien ships were coming down in what seemed intent on dropping off more troops to attack. When the fold occurred, it took a part of that ship with it and what happened to still be there then exploded; raining debris over the water and any ships that happened to be in the area."

"As of right now the people of Macross and the crews of all three ships are being reported as missing by the military. SDF-1 was supposed to rendezvous with the space fleet near the Moon this coming from some of the more senior commanders onboard. Currently the military is not going any further to answer any questions due to what some are saying that they are still battling with Alien forces in-between the Earth and Moon's orbit. Once we can get more from UN Space forces I'll have an update for you on what is going on Soledad. This is Anderson Cooper reporting to you live from the Pacific Ocean onboard the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.

"Thank you Anderson. Hopefully we will get more information to you viewers as soon as we can. "Raising her hand to her ear she continues, "Okay, I'm getting information that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, is about to give a statement on the current situation. Dan, what do have for us?" Dan Lothian appearing on screen, the White House press room in the background with a multitude of news correspondents trying to get more information from their associated news outlets and sources about what has occurred at Macross Island.

"Yes Soledad the President will be on shortly to explain what has occurred in the Pacific ocean just moments ago, and here he comes" Said Dan Lothian.

"My fellow Americans, people's of the world. I come to you today to tell you of the moment that we hoped that would not happen has happened. As you know the Alien ship, SDF-1 crash-landed on our planet some fifteen years ago. Today the Alien race that we believe built it has arrived in orbit over our planet. The UEG ordered all member military services to go to DEFCON One when the aliens arrived; bypassing all sensors that we have placed in and around our solar system. They then attempted to make contact with the unknown ships except that they refuted all forms of communication." Taking a breath and gathering himself to continue, the President went on, "As what our experts about the ship can determine so far, is that a Booby-trap for a better lack of term, hardwired into the SDF-1 systems and set to automatically attack any of the Aliens within a certain range with its main guns." Chaos erupting in the pressroom as reports stand up shouting trying to get their question heard. The President pointing towards one of the reporters attempting to get his attention. "Maureen please go ahead and ask your question."

"Sir, you are saying that after all the changes and rebuilding of the ship, we managed to miss something that could have possibly staved off this conflict?" Maureen Dowd of the New York Times asked.

"Maureen, it's not something that we missed - it's something that seems to have been permanently ingrained into the systems of SDF-1." The President explained, as the pressroom went quiet once again, continuing. "As I am speaking to you now, the UN space forces are fighting against the Alien armada of some one hundred thousand ships. Far more space vessels than we could have ever guessed possible for any one species to create."

More reporters clamoring for more information on the current attack, another reporter asked, "Mr. President is there any sign of them possibly invading the planet? Are our forces winning against the aliens?" Wendell Goler of FOX news asked.

"There was a force that landed near the area of SDF-1, but that ship and the forces associated with it was destroyed, along with reports of another that was coming in when the ship folded out." Stopping as an aide walked up next to the President, reading the note that was handed to him, and listening to the explanation from the aide, then nodding he continued giving the most recent information to the reports and world. "So far Mr. Goler, we have destroyed about five dozen of the enemy ships. The orbital stations have also powered up their weapons and have also fired against what we hoped to call possible friends but are labeling as an enemy force."

"Sir! Sir, you are telling us that the orbital stations are not just habitats and space yards, but actually battlestations?!" Sam Stein of the Huffington Post shouted out in accusation towards the President for keeping such a secret.

"It was decided by the UEG council that there should be weapons placed on board all stations to repel invaders and attackers, which would fall under the jurisdiction of the Military commanders on board each one. With that ladies and gentlemen, I take my leave of you to plan and prepare for the next steps this nation will undertake to help contribute to the defense of this world and nation. Thank you." Waving, the President turned and left through the side entrance, as the members of the press corps yelled and pushed forward into the arms of waiting secret service agents, preventing them from further access into the White House.

**UEG Inner Council chambers New York, New York USA two hours after Alien fleet disappeared**

The members of the inner council were seated around the council chamber room reviewing the video footage and data from sensors from the battle with the aliens. To say that they were not surprised would be an understatement; they were astounded at the amount of ships that were present in the alien fleet. To believe that any species was capable of building and fielding a force of spaceships that large was something all members of the council had a hard time wrapping their minds around the concept. They were having troubles with just managing to gather enough of the resources together for the stations and home defense fleet, which at this moment was partly devastated. The butchers' bill for this battle was seventeen ships with all hands a complete loss; two stations that were attacked and damaged, the Excalibur stations port side a cooling slagged mess. Estimates for repairs were almost six months, and to take up to fifteen percent of the total tug fleet. Along with the unknown status of SDF-1, Macross Island and the two carriers, they were looking at a significant loss of people and material. Oh sure there were plans for the future defense of the solar system, but they had yet to get far enough in building the massive infrastructure to support it. The orbital stations themselves were just on the verge of being just self-sustainable with producing enough foodstuffs for those onboard, and an appreciable reserve for power and munitions.

"What do we know so far about the force that appeared intent on recovering the SDF-1?" Michele Dou'touard the councilor from France said.

"Well Michele, from what we have gathered is that the force sent down to SDF-1 was what comparable to a force recon group. The data some of our military analysts have decoded shows that there was one ship in charge of the fleet that attacked." Admiral Paul Stevenson for the UN Space defense said. "Also what telemetry we have managed to recover from data feeds from SDF-1 shows that the attack was an automated response. It seems that even with what changes and modifications we made this was hard-coded into the ships systems. When rebuilding we stayed as much as possible along the original design lines, so even with our changes with computers and expansion this was still going to occur."

"So then we were doomed to this course of action no matter what we did?" Rolph Hendersen of Germany asked.

Paul turned towards Rolph, "Sir, from the lack of response and the unprovoked attack on both our ships and the island it would be apparent from what information we have gathered that it seems this race appears to be very aggressive and possibly extremely violent. There was no discrimination between both military targets and non-military ones, as that they opened fire upon the Macross city. There is also the distinct possibility that they are highly xenophobic as well, due to the lack of communication."

"Mon Dieu, how can we know that? This is an alien race we are dealing with!" An excited Michele announced. "It's not like they are human. Unlike that coward Leonard, so that nothing we know can be applied to them."

"Sir, Fleet Captain Leonard made a tactical decision in the middle of a battle, one that he was severely outnumbered, and two the aliens also retreated more than likely to go after the SDF-1. How Captain Gloval is going to make it back here where ever he is, God will only know."

"If you have forgotten Michele you were here when the information garnered from the different size proportion of the ship and manning stations on the SDF-1 before we started resizing it for our use; would infer that they were somewhat similar to a humanoid shape and about some six to ten times larger than us. This is some footage from one of the gun camera's that was uploaded in a constant data feed from the ship prior to its disappearance." Playing the gun camera video file that was from Rick Hunters Veritech as shot the Giant Zentraedi male walking towards the fighter, it then picks up at the view from Skull one as he delivers the kill shot, finally killing the giant of a man. Turning back towards the rest on the people around the council table he continues, "As you all can see, these aliens for all intense purposes are human. How and why there are humans in space, how long they have been out there, and why they are so tall having yet to be answered."

"Humph… Then comrades, this means that we have a few things that we can use against these 'Humans'." As Vladimir Milov, the appointed representative of the Russian Federation spoke out. All turned toward Vladimir as if to beg an explanation to what he meant. "Ahhh, you see if they are humans or at least human-like, then that means they can fear and can be tempted by things that all of we are tempted by, Da?"

"How would you manage to tempt them or even make them feel fear, as if you didn't just notice they outnumbered us two thousand to one! Even if we completely put ourselves into a wartime footing we still would not have enough ships to fight them."

"You are looking at this the wrong way comrade. We do not need to expend ourselves in producing mass amounts of ships to fight them. Just need to be sneaky about it, we overwhelming them with enough cannons to surround the space around earth and destroy them in at least an alpha strike."

"That would mean just focusing all our military production for at least a year to build this." Amanda Rodriguez of the South American Confederation said, "It would be better in my opinion to spend a few months expanding the fleet needed to gather the resources and building new manufacturing facilities. Each new space factory we build can assist in constructing the next one until we have doubled our current production." Some of those sitting around the table nodding their heads in agreement. "Then we start the buildup of these satellite weapons that Milov wants to build. While we have the surface factories start on stockpiling parts and supplies for each of our focus areas at the same time. That could feasibly allow us to quadruple our output, making sure we can ensure the planets survival."

"I would second that idea if anyone would have objections to it, please say so that we can get this started as soon as possible." Sam Seaborn from the US stated. "I know that we would all like to be able to fight them on a one for one basis, but right now we still can't do that. What's the time estimate on the completion of the other two ships Paul?"

"Currently the second ship of the Dimensional class is ninety-three percent complete and should be ready by the end of the summer. It was awaiting the data from the fold test jump of the SDF-1 before we connected their fold drives and completed armor placement. While the third is thirty-five percent complete, inner hull, framework, engines, and power plant are all completed and waiting for the next phase of construction." Taking a breath Paul continued with the information. "Dr. Lazo says that he can improve on the protoculture plant and make a stable fold drive that can exceed the original design specs of SDF-1. However, I would rather like him to stay on specification and not experiment until we have a large enough force to handle our current crisis. Though that is up to this council if you would allow him do that."

The debate continued long into the night and into the next day as the council continued discussing strategy, making designs, and arguing amongst each other. After two days of working through the information gathered from the battle itself and finishing the debate on what to do next. It was decided to spend the next four months expanding space based construction until they had three times their current amount, then start construction of the quarter sized BFSG's until there was enough to fill the space between the planets with them, hopefully preventing another incursion into the space around Earth.

**Marine Scout Recon team 'White Wraith" power-armor suit armory – SDF-1 - One hour post Fold**

The White Wraiths armory was full of noise and activity as the members of the scout recon team filed in from the recent briefing they received from Colonel Zach 'Armstrong' Bradnicoft. They were suiting up in their Mk. 2 personal Battleoid suits. The Mk.2's are a vast improvement over the first generation. Standing at over three meters tall each and weighing in at just over 1.5tonnes, the suits had a full environmental protection rated for a CBR environment for 48hours and either 150 atmospheres or vacuum usage for the same time. With a fusion/Protoculture power pack, they were able to use the LAZ-23 pulse laser rifle for an estimated 300 rounds before changing out the focusing matrix due to burn out. Twice the strength enhancement of the Mk1, for just over 3.8tonnes of carry weight, and a rocket booster pack allowing them to either hover for over 100meters, or jump some 60meters at a time.

Sgt. Julio 'DeSanto' Portena was pulling out one of the weapons racks with a display of his normal vocal tirade of choice words as usual. "These pockers, always making the biggest mess I can see of nythne. And, what do I get other than a pocking 'nother 'signmnt, dhese pockers." Turning around and noticing the company Captain Lance 'Stretch' Armstrong, standing at a third of a meter taller than Portena, he turns and says, "Oh its dou again, dou going to ruin my armor again, Sir?"

Smirking with a look that says what else do you expect, "Sgt. What do you expect from a unit that's usually sent on some of the worst types of missions? We were lucky enough those whack-a-moles only had a half-dozen tanks instead of any power armor or a HYT. Then you would have a real mess to fix."

"I'd still not done fixin' thed last bunch of crap you guys brought in" Magically brandishing a wrench near the Captains face that he pulled out of nowhere.

"I got ya' on that, but we got a special mission from the Colonel." Lance blinking and wondering where and how Portena manages to hide and brandish a wrench that is half his size. "We are going to board the alien ship and do a recon before they bring in the big guns. If we find anything of note we're to mark it and if need be blow it. So, you got 30 minutes to finish up whatever you need to do before we have to suit up and get over there."

"Okay, okay I'ded get dou. I have 'nother six suits to finish calibrating. Unless I get a's hand, Id on't get all of d'hm done fer dour mission."

Half an hour later, the White Wraiths were suited up and loaded in the transport to the Alien ship. Transiting to it was uneventful, the escort with them was pulling two Apollo class Destroids to give cover in case they ran into a battle ostrich or two onboard. The transport ship pulled up to one of the larger passageways that were bisected by the fold. Receding into the darkness of the ship nothing could be seen until both Destroids turned on their lights along with the transports spot-lights there was enough to see an emergency bulkhead about fifteen meters ahead of them.

**White Wraiths scout shuttle approaching Alien ship**

The team approached the bulkhead assessing the ability to breach it without causing too much damage to possible intelligence and artifacts inside the ship. Seeing no access or readout panels on this side they decide to use one Apollo of the lasers to cut a test opening to the other side big enough for the squad to pass a sensor probe through. Once the hole bored and pushed out-of-the-way, they noticed there was no air rushing through the cut, which suggested that the other side suffered more damage or connected to another compartment that was exposed to space. The sensor probe was a small eight-centime wide drone with hover capabilities, HD stereoscopic video cameras, infrared sensors, uv, and audio sensors to pinpoint and find anything of interest to the user. The probe flew through the hole and into a green lit hallway that was some ten meters wide and twenty-five meters tall, down to the right was a hatch going to a space that appeared to be a office. The marines all sharing a platoon data channel saw this, and one commented 'even the aliens have paperwork and their slackers, look at the mess of papers in there.' As papers floated around the room from being disturbed by the probes motion.

Further along the probe went, space after space seeing no presence of any of the giant alien combatants that crewed the ship. After fifteen minutes of searching, it came to a hatch that showed power was available on the door panel. Deciding that it was time to enter, Capt. Armstrong ordered the Apollo's to open the door, provide transport, and cover for the team. When they reached the powered hatch, Armstrong ordered PFC Milkensen to try to hack the computer controls to open the door. Releasing the mag-clamps from his suits boots, he squatted down and then leapt to the panel. Seeing some of the same alien script that was leftovers onboard the SDF-1 and part of the training course once he joined the UN defense forces, PFC Tom Milkensen proceeded to pry open the panel and connect his personnel minicomp that was standard issue to all cyber tech personnel in service. The translation program decrypting what was known about the language

During the scouting of the Zentraedi ship the investigation team discovered many things that would cause them to gasp in amazement and be bewildered. One of the first things that they discovered was the cryo-pod stasis room, which would normally hold hundreds of alien soldiers in a cryogenic suspension. This room was on part of the level that was sliced in half during the fold. When one of the security team members floated up to look inside he was so startled, he screamed like a little child as he proceeded to empty the charge of his pulse rifle into the view port, shattering it and destroying the head of the alien in stasis. With further investigation, they discovered even more cryo-pods that due to the power loss caused those that were in stasis to die to the uncontrolled freezing that came from being frozen by the cold depths of space. A few of the pods and bodies were tagged with RF tag markers for study by the medical teams back onboard the SDF-1.

Continuing their exploration further into the ship they found the forward mecha hanger bay, were they saw the hundreds of ostrich battlepods that were lined up all awaiting usage. Once making it to the bridge and discovering the simplicity of it, seeing how this large of a vessel could be controlled by only two beings and a single commander surprised both Dr. Lang and the command staff once they reviewed the footage and data from the ships computers.

The vessel was towed alongside the SDF-1 to remove the battlepods, and other various equipment that was deemed for further study. The bodies were taken in for study to determine the physiology of the aliens and how closely related they were to humans due to their extreme likeness to themselves while the rest were disposed off in the forges of the ship as they had no place to store them and had no knowledge of funeral rites, if even they had said rites for their peoples. The strangest thing that was discovered was that every body onboard was male; no females were onboard making them all wonder as to why that was.

In the end, teams of technicians, Destroids, and Valkyires spent time breaking down the ship for extra materials and removal of weapons systems to added onto the SDF-1 itself.

**Six days since mis Hyperspace-Fold SDF-1**

In the following days, the crew of SDF-1 continued making repairs, Dr. Lang, after two days of investigation he gave his report to the Captain on the Fold drives and how they managed to bring them here. In his report, the discovery of the secondary power runs from the back-up Fusion reactors had blown due to shoddy power relays, along with part of the primary power runs, specifically along that part of the ships expansion construction and rebuild. He explained that prior to them blowing, an extra surge of power rushed towards the fold drives instead of shunting the breakers. Instead the increasing energy coming in, caused a supercharge effect to the Fold drives. Where they should have just folded to the moon, there was enough of a power charge to the fold drive allowing the ship to fold along with the carriers and island that was transported them light years away from any known reference.

The Captain and command staff were furious that such an important job could have been done so poorly, both in shoddy materials, equipment, along with the 'supposed sign off inspections' that ended up with them in this situation. Back on Earth, several people shuddered as they felt what some would say the shadow of death walking across their grave.

Work continued with moving the remaining crew from the two carriers to barracks onboard the ship, along with moving of all the civilians from the Macross Island shelters to the secondary cargo hold of the ship. When the last of the shelters was evacuated and the citizens of Macross accounted for, they discovered that there were only two missing people, Rick Hunter and Linn Minmei. At first, it was thought that they were left on Earth, but a crew chief remembered that they took off shortly before the SDF-1 took off heading towards the city. Roy wanted nothing more than to go out and search for them, but permission for him to go on that mission was denied, as the reasoning was that they were most likely already dead. In addition, the possibility of finding something as small as the stunt flyer in space was a challenge even with the best of knowledge of what direction they went in and equipment as well.

For the military side of the house, it was a more somber story. Out of both carriers they lost both bridge and pri-fly teams off the Prometheus and part of the bridge team of the Deadalus; this being because it was not a space rated vehicle, partly due to it being a submersible carrier and that their captain was actually strapped into his chair. Along with both ships suffering more losses among their flight deck crews, along with whatever flight deck equipment that was on deck at the time. Overall, there was a loss of fifteen percent the total crew from both carriers.

Contingency plans made by the command staff for when the Aliens that first attacked either Earth or the ones whose star systems that they were now in visited them. Two full squadrons were on constant patrol with another one in hot standby. Once all the civilians were inside the ship, they set about placing half the Destroid squadrons in critical junctions as point defense stations around the ship, along with setting them up as an automatic system remnant like the old CIWS system used on surface ships. Those Destroids that weren't used for defense was used in the deconstruction of Macross Island city to make room for the civilians onboard instead of placing them in barracks around the ship.

After attaching both of the carriers to SDF-1, the construction of a more permanent living area for the civilians was built using the supplies and remains of buildings salvaged from Macross Island. Those buildings that managed to survive the transition to space during the fold were brought in, while those that were no longer usable were broken down and used as supplies to build new ones of the former island city inside the depths of the ship.

Constructing part of Macross city, a freak accident caused by a construction crew in the building process resulted in a deckplate coming loose and crashing onto the deck below. When they investigated, it resulted in the discovery and rescue of the two lost youths. Both Rick and Rick's adopted brother and the friends and family of Minmei celebrated the return of both people. Especially one worried pilot, who was quite relieved that his adopted little brother was still alive and well.

**Sixth Day since Fold – Captain Glovals' Ready room**

In the Captains ready room, two men sat discussing plans "Well Captain, I do think that you have managed to make up for your mistake of taking all of us into space." The portly former earth bound governor of Macross Island said to Gloval with a smirk. "The town is coming along nicely; you even managed to find those two missing kids. Do you think that you will be able to protect us this time instead of doing something rash, Hmmm?"

Fuming inside and covering his eyes with his ever-present cover, Bruno wanted nothing more than to beat the snot out of him for his snide remarks and lack of appreciation to the hard work of the crew. Taking a moment before letting something out that would ruin his chances of ensuring the ship and its passengers got back to Earth. Standing up he replied, "Governor, the crew of the SDF-1 and the carriers have done an excellent job in setting up the city in as little time as we have. However, I would like to take some longer time to at least remove as many as possible resources from the island as possible. We do not know how long it will be until we have a manufacturing capability to supply both the ship and the civilians onboard. We also still have to yet to conclusively figure out why the Fold drives brought us out this far and why they still do not work."

"Captain, we need to move from here as quickly as possible, before those aliens that originally attacked you" Vehemently poking a finger into Bruno's' chest, spittle flying from his mouth as he continued his triad "before they come back and finish the job. Or the possibility of having these other aliens attack us, especially since we've trespassed into their territory."

Shaking his head, and visibly calming, "I swear they should have approved Captain Grant Yamahira instead of you as the commander. The UEG was even going to promote you to Admiral after the ceremony for 'your hard work and dedication' on this project." Tossing a box at Gloval, catching it, he opened the box and looked upon the pair of silver stars. "I guess we'll make it official since I can't rescind the order, and you are the only ranking officer here that could possibly get us back. I will be in the stateroom that was assigned to me if you want to give those back. If not, I expect to at the minimum, be kept informed of what is going on. Goodbye Admiral"

Looking at the back of the departing governor as he left his ready room, Captain Henry J. Gloval, no, now Admiral of the SDF-1 and responsible for over 70,000 people wondered as to what other surprises the universe had in store for him today.

Somewhere in the greater Universe the god called 'Murphy' smiling, obliged a once said Captain, now Admiral Henry Gloval.

* * *

**Tech Notes**

**Sensor Probe **- The sensor probe was a recent work by the US military in miniature drones used by field forces for recon and targeting information. With the discovery and technology coming out of the visitor, it was updated to have even more sensors and an ability to be self directed within certain parameters. All branches of the UN forces as well as police use larger and smaller models for intel and recon. Most commonly a eight-centimeter probe that has audio and visual sensors they can be made to carry UV, Infrared, thermal, and sonar as well has been a boon to all scout teams.

**MK. 2 Battlesuit** - In the words of anti-unification armies, 'It's a walking main battle tank'. Issued in 2008 as the MK. 1 which a few of the current features of the mark two. The second version is much more capable to handle various tasks assigned to it. Able to carry over a tone in equipment and fully encasing a soldier with a protective six centimeter armor layer of alien and human alloys; allowing them to take an abusive amount of punishment that even a previous generations main battle tank could take and survive. Capable of lasting forty-eight hours on their internal power supply in either space or an underwater environment up to 150 atmospheres.

**LAZ-23 **- The main laser battle rifle used by armored troops in the UN forces. Capable of firing upwards of 300 rounds of focused particle laser, or five minutes of a solid beam before having to change out the focusing matrix elements from burnout as power is usually supplied by suit power. A non-suit version used by security forces with a wider selection of focusing functions powered by a protoculture battery cell for two thousand rounds before change out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Six days since SDF-1's mis Hyperspace-Fold**

Out in the space between the home stars, the Battlestar Titan was on patrol between Helios Alpha and Beta of the Colonial home system for the last three weeks. On a mission from section five of the Colonial military, investigating some anomalous jump signals recently detected, along with the possible signs of pirates in the area.

Sitting in his stateroom, the commander of the Titan, Commander George Ablitano was drinking some coffee while going over the daily situational reports of his command. Looking over the engineering reports, he tallies up another thing that needs priority to work on for the night orders during the break in flight operations. The next one from the CAG riled him up about his ships current situation, _The ship should be in the yards getting the new upgrades instead of patrolling in the middle of bum-frak nowhere, while I'm reading these reports for another failure with the port bay launchers. Damn that woman, she had to go and pull rank to get her ship upgraded._ Sighing and reaching for his phone to call up the CAG and get an explanation and updated plan of action as to why his port launchers where down again for the second time this month.

Then the 1MC came online announcing "Commander to CIC." Pushing back, Getting up, and taking one last drink before heading to the CIC, shaking his head and thinking._ I swear if it is one more random piece of comet debris on the Dradis, I am going to scream! A month out here patrolling for the source of these random jump signals. With no sign of any wannabe pirates or smugglers, when the best we have found is a few new comets that should be going through Alpha in a few hundred years._

"Attention on Deck!" the Marine on Guard calls out into CIC as the commander walks through the hatch.

Looking around the CIC and noting the watches and how he was proud of his crew in handling their current assignment, he calls out "Carry on everyone. Mr. Peltier, so what did we find this time? Are we going to name this comet after your cat?" Ablitano asks with a smirk on his face.

Unabashed of his comment, Peltier responds, "Sir, actually it's a communiqué from Picon. They report that the deep scope network has detected a burst of light that originated some six hundred SU distant from Zeus about six hours ago. They want us to investigate the cause."

Becoming concerned Ablitano furrows his brow, "Did they mention the possibility of it being Cylons?"

"No sir, but it seemed to be implied."

"Frak! All right then, bring in the patrol vipers and have the CAG send out a Raptor for a quick scan of the area, then have them jump back here. We don't want to be tipping off our hand to whoever this is before we know who it is." The gruff, two meter tall Commander stood in the middle of CIC, looking around at his crew he spoke in his deep, rough voice, "Alright, listen up!" All heads turned towards him as he continues to speak, "We just received a message from command to investigate an unknown light source that appeared recently. Right now, we don't know if it is Pirates that have attacked a deep space research ship or someone that had a mis-jump or something else. I'm hoping it's just someone that had a fault in their jump drive, but we need to prepare for the possibility of it being something much worse." Some of the crew, almost as young as his sister's children visibly gulped. "Now I don't think it's the Cylons, since they haven't been seen in next to forty years. More than likely its some rich frak that mis-plotted his jump in a pleasure yacht, but it's the fleets' job to check out these things so we need to be ready." Taking a deep breath and letting it out. "Now set condition one, have a raptor on deck and ready to launch in five minutes. I want all sections to report ready status to go in ten. Once the raptor reports we'll plan our next course of action. Understood?"

Nods of acknowledgment from those present going around the entirety of CIC. Major Tohms spoke with the Commander, "George, do you think that it is the Cylons? I know that we haven't heard from them in nearly forty years, but you remember the briefing we got from section five before heading out?"

In a hushed tone, Ablitano responds, "I know what they said. They didn't so much say it in plain words, but the way they did not say it. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't them. We've been getting a bunch of these ghost sightings from all around the colonies for about the last two years. Moreover, no one has found anything from any of these searches. Damn Adar and his budget cuts are what have prevented us from actually spending the time and resources to find out if it is something to worry about."

"You know that we can go toe to toe with a Basestar, but if this is a fleet we don't stand a chance."

"Then we make sure that we bug out as fast as we can, and at least leave them a bloody nose and get back to Picon to inform the fleet." CDR. Ablitano spoke. "As much as I would like this to be only pirates, though, we might have to accept the possible fact that it might be Cylons." Alexi nodded in agreement.

"Sir, Raptor two-one-six is ready to launch. 'Heartbreak' and 'Small Fry' are in the raptor Commander."

"Thank you Mr. Peltier; Heartbreak, this is Actual, I need you to do a flyby of this object. If you see any trouble, bug out as soon as possible and get back here. You got that?"

"Aye sir. We'll bring back some pretty pictures of some pirates for you sir." Lt. Jack 'Heartbreak' Lebrano replied. Taking off from the launch pad and moving away from the Battlestar, he turns back to Sam "Lets' jump Small".

**Raptor 216**

"Alright Small Fries, you ready for this frak?" said Heartbreak

Looking up from setting the coordinates in the navigation computer for the anomaly, Samuel 'Small Fries' Hopple looks at his pilot in the front of the Raptor and answers back in dismissal. "Whatever, Heartbreak I hope this is nothing more than some random occurrence of nature's laws having a spasm."

Laughing Heartbreak replied, "Funny guy, hope so, I don't really feel like dealing with pirates or the chance of meeting smugglers. I have a game to get back to." He opened a comm channel to Titan's CIC. "Flight, this is raptor two-one-six ready for launch. We expect to be onsite within five mikes. "

"Heartbreak, this is Actual, I need you to do a flyby of this object. If you see any trouble, bug out as soon as possible and get back here. You got that?"

"Aye sir. We'll bring back some pretty pictures of some pirates for you sir." Jack replied. Taking off from the launch pad and moving away from the Battlestar, he turns back to Sam "Lets' jump Small".

Turning the key for the jump, Raptor two one six disappeared from the area around the starboard flight pod then shortly reappearing within the vicinity of the coordinates of the anomaly. What they saw was what seemed to be a giant asteroid. Giving a small burst of thrust, they slowly began coasting around it; they then started seeing buildings that would be innocuous anywhere in the Colonies. As they looked up from the asteroid into the area of space around, they came upon the scene that surprised and shocked them.

"Holy FRAK! What in the Gods name is that?!" Lebrano shouted as he saw the blue and white object floating above them and the asteroid straight in front of his viewport. Panic beginning to seep into his normally cool persona, "That is in no way in hell a pirate base! Is the camera running? I don't think they've seen us yet."

Looking flabbergasted, a somewhat calmer Hopple stared, he spoke automatically as he gazed at the size and setup these pirates have made in-between the colonies home stars. "Combat camera is running. This thing is huge! It's almost twice the size of a Battlestar, and they have a whole city on that asteroid! How in the Zeus' fraking cock did they manage to make something this huge out here with no one noticing?"

Heartbreak is for once speechless as he looks out at the spectacle in front of him, trying to maneuver the raptor without being seen and as much intelligence gathered before they have to bug out back to Titan. "Small what's the time for us to jump back; command is going to want to send a whole strike-group for these frakkers."

"We got about two more minutes before the drive is ready to go." Small Fry said, then looking back to the scope as he saw three blips beginning to turn their way. Jaw dropping at what he saw, as the tremors of hysteria began to fill in his voice, "Oh, man this is not good, not good at all. Frak! Frak! I have three craft on an intercept course towards us. Looks like they are going to do a flyby on us Heartbr…."

"Get us out of here, you hear. We don't have time to stick around!"

"The drive is not fully charged yet. I've got another 45 seconds to go before we can jump"

Screaming in a near absolute panic to Sam, "Dump it, dump everything into it! I don't care if we blow the jump drive we need to go now!"

Making the needed adjustments to the Raptors controls, Sam gets receives the indication that the all power is now diverted to the drives, in the hopes to speed up their escape back to Titan. "Got it, life, sensors, and thrusters are all dumped into the jump drive. Charging, charging…. Charged, and Jumping!" A bright light, with an after image appears of the raptor going back to the Titan.

**Blue squadron on patrol – First squad **

"One to two and three, did you guys just see what I saw?"

"Yes, but I can barely believe my eyes, might need to get them checked again. At least we got some footage before they bugged out" Three said.

"Uh…I did, but I do not believe it." Two said, "Better alert the tower, I think that we are going to be having some company shortly one."

"Well it looks like we are not getting back for ramen after our patrol run guys." Groans heard in the squad channel as One switched over to the tower TAC channel. "Tower this is Blue one actual, I've got an update for you on that anomaly you asked for us to check out."

"Go ahead One." The tower responded.

"Tower we arrived on scene and found what appeared to be a bulky fighter. Though, that is not the strange part of it, the thing just performed what look like to be a fold when we started to get close enough."

"Okay, wait! You're telling me that these guys have a fold drive on what looks like a fighter craft?! Holy crap! That's not a good thing! All right Blue here are your new orders, maintain an over watch of the area and get the rest of your squadron over there. I'll call the captain to inform him about this visit. I'll put the rest of first wing on alert, with second wing on five minute alert, with third on standby; expect at least another four squadrons out there shortly."

"Roger that tower. Blue one out." Changing to the squadron channel blue one spoke to everyone, "Blue squad fall on me at these coordinates. We are going to maintain patrol as we are expecting company from the locals soon." The rest of the squadron acknowledged the order and started falling in formation on one. Whilst Orange, Sepia, Brown, and Green arrived in formations around Blue squadron. Continuing a patrol around the SDF-1 ordered the rest of the squadron to continue patrol whilst waiting for the rest of the squadrons to be launched.

**SDF-1 Bridge/CATCC/Pri-fly**

"Tower this is Blue one actual, I've got an update for you on that anomaly you asked for us to check out."

"Go ahead One." The tower responded.

"Tower we arrived on scene and found what appeared to be a bulky fighter. Though that is not the strange part of it, the thing performed what look like to be a fold when we started to get close enough."

"Okay, wait! You're telling me that these guys have a fold drive on what looks like a fighter craft?! Holy crap! That's not a good thing! All right Blue here are your new orders, maintain an over watch of the area and get the rest of your squadron over there. I'll call the Captain to inform him about this visit. I'll put the rest of first wing on alert, with second wing on five minute alert, with third on standby; expect at least another four squadrons out there shortly."

"Roger that tower. Blue one out."

Changing back to the over-watch comm channel, Senior Chief Apscala turned towards the Air boss. "Sir, we have a situation out at the area we sent Blue squadron to." The Air Boss raised his eyebrow to signify her to continue. "Seems like one of the natives 'folded into' the area behind Macross Island, first squad of Blue managed to get a look at it before it folded out again. We don't know how much they got a look at, but I would think that they got a decent look at least the island and SDF-1 before hand."

"Crap. Get the rest of first wing out there and I'll call up the Captain to inform him. Make sure to get the status preps from the squadrons so we can update our boards senior. Looks like we are going to have a long watch people rotate out as needed for head breaks before the heat turns up." He announced to everyone in the CATCC/Pri-Fly area, and then turning back to the Senior Chief. "Good job on the call Senior, also call up CIC to have them set up general quarters and let them get the civilians into the ships shelters." Seeing her nodding and carrying out her orders, Lt Simmons turns and picks up his phone.

Dialing the number to the Captains' cabin, Jack Simmons prepared to give him the news about their not so unexpected visitor. They were all hoping that they would have some more time to get the ship ready, if not just managing to escape with the locals not noticing they were ever here.

Admiral Gloval still looking at the stars in his hand, he is broken out of his revere by the phone ringing. Picking up and answering, "Cap… Admiral Gloval, go."

Startled by the now Admirals response, the CAG begins the report. "Admiral Sir, we have a confirmed case sir. Blue One spotted a visitor in the area of anomaly he also reported that it seems the locals are be able to perform folds with fighter-sized craft.

"I understand, have the alert fighters scramble and get the secondary wing set to go. We should be expecting them shortly with more of their friends if not some warships. Inform me when complete." With that final note, Gloval made his way out of his ready room and to the bridge.

At her console, CDR Hayes was plotting out further defensive measures for the placements of the two fighter wings, along with further emplacement of the salvaged alien weapons with Dr. Lang, the DCA, and Weapons Officer. When she heard the doors opening from the Captains Ready room, she called out 'Captain on deck!' only to stop mid-salute as she noticed the new shoulder boards on the captains' uniform. "Sir, Is everything alright?"

"Da, it is fine Commander Hayes. Have we issued an order to the civilian government onboard to move the populace to the shelters onboard?"

"Not yet sir, I wanted to confirm with you about the placement order in sending two wings up, maybe we should try a more amicable solution instead of being ready for battle."

"I would normally agree with you Commander, but as you recall from the recent briefing from the linguists, Ms. Porter and Dr. Lang on the language and what little history we have of these people. That they are a more distrustful type of people ever since their war forty years ago against the other humans called the 'Cylons'.

"Understood sir." As the Admiral picks up his, phone to inform the Governor of the new developments. She switches on the ship wide broadcast announcing to all. "Now set condition one throughout the ship, all civilians report to your designated shelters. All military forces report to your duty stations. First, Second wing prepare to launch. Third airwing on ready five, Fourth airwing on ready fifteen." Repeating herself once again as the bridge crew spring into action, the bridge bunnies issuing out orders to their respective sections as the ship buckles down for the possible conflict with the local aliens.

**Battlestar Titan **

A flash of light appeared near the Battlestar as raptor two-one-six turned toward the ship and shortly afterwards the radio in CIC crackled to life. "Flight this Raptor two-one-six. We need to speak to actual; we have a condition one scenario!"

"This is Actual two-one-six. You are calling a con one correct?"

"Sir yes sir! Coming in for landing right now, we have footage that you need to see right now sir. You are never going to believe what we saw." Heartbreak said.

"XO, have a marine escort for them and have them meet me in my ready room as soon as possible. You too as well, I think that we are all going to want to hear this Alexi."

"Yes sir." Pointing towards the chief of the guard, they head off to the hangar to escort the Raptor crew to the commanders' ready room.

When they landed, a heavy marine escort met both members of the scout raptor and the XO were they were escorted to the Commanders office. Alexi knocked on the door and entered the ready room announcing, "Lt's Hopple and Lebrano reporting as ordered sir."

"Sir, here is the photos of what we found." As Small Fry handed them to Commander Ablitano looked at the photographs. His eyes widen at first seeing the remains of the island and the buildings, then seeing the sheer size of the unknown ship. "How in the colonies did these 'Pirates' manage to build something this large without anyone knowing?" first looking at the two pilots, then continuing to flip through the pictures he comes upon the ones of Blue squadron. "Now this is frakked up. Who would recreate what looks to be craft from the colonies were still trying to get back to space?" Shaking his head, this is giving me a headache he thought. "Right now we have some interference from Alpha, so I'm sending you guys to HQ to deliver this to Admiral Nagala. Inform him that we will be heading to the location in approximately two hours."

The two pilots left the Commanders cabin heading back to report to Picon and Admiral Nagala, looking towards his XO George Ablitano said, "Holy frak Alexis, what type of felcarb did we step into with this crap?" Shaking his head and running a hand through his hair, he continued. "This is some major setup, I don't even think that any pirates could have done this, and it definitely does not look like Cylons. Though they could have changed in the last forty years, but I don't think they could have changed that much."

Alexi spoke up after looking at the pictures again. "I would hope that they are not Cylons. If they are, we are truly in a frakked up situation. Who knows what they would look like nowadays? If this isn't I couldn't think of too many groups that could do pull off something like this?" His CDR. giving him a quizzical look, "Look, only a major corporation could do this with paying off a few members of the ruling council. On the other hand, it could be Ha'la'tha. But, usually this is normally not their style as they tend to be in the background making sure that they get their way."

"Well my friend, let's hope that this is just nothing more than a company that set up an out of the way research post. What they are doing that will be explained when we jump in."

"I hope so, I hope so." Major Alexi Tohms said.

Little did both know that the upcoming events change their outlook in the universe, and have a bigger part in the saving of the human race.

**Fifteen minutes later, Raptor 216 in Picon fleet headquarters **

After announcing their unexpected presence to fleet control, the two man crew of Raptor two-one-six landed in one of the landing bays closer to central command. When exiting they were meet by a twelve man marine team, and escorted under armed guard straight to Admiral Nagala's office. Reporting as commanded by Titan's commander, and as the situation required by announcing a Condition One alert both lieutenants stood at attention in front of his desk.

Looking at both young officers, Admiral Nagala takes the secured package from Lt. Hopples hand and opens it. Looking at the note from Commander Ablitano, his eyes goes from blasé to surprise, then to concern over reading the report and transcripts of voice traffic. The pictures surprised him by what he sees; first, the massive base then the giant of a ship. He finally speaks up, "So you two were the ones that followed through on the signal detection?" They both nod in mute silence. "You know I am not going to bit your heads off, yet?" smiling at the both of them, heartbreak gulps at the comment not knowing what is coming next.

"What can you tell me about this object and the craft that came after you, before I decide that we need to send half of the fleet out there to stop these frakkers?"

"Sir, uh, I, Sir what we observed was that they appeared to have a full city on the asteroid that almost looked like some island off of Aquarius. When we saw the craft in orbit we made sure the camera was running and started a rapid charge of the jump drive." Explained Lt. Lebrano, adjusting his collar and wondering if it just got hotter in the office or if it was just when he was under armed guard in front of one of the most important and powerful people in the colonies, he went on, "Then Small… Lt. Hopple alerts me of the three fighter craft that were on an intercept course towards us. That's when the drive was finally charged and we jumped out."

"Do you concur with Lt. Lebrano's statement Lt. Hopple?"

"Yes sir I do, I wish I could say something different but its the truth sir."

"Very well, with your commanders' statement and this evidence I'm going to send the Gunstar Omicron and the Battlestar War Maiden out to join the Titan in putting a halt to whoever these people that is out there. In five hours, I'll send another six Battlestars to the anomalies position unless I fleet hears word that your group has managed to handle it. Carry on, and let Commander Ablitano he has my blessing and go with the Gods. Dismissed."

The two lieutenants salute and walk out of his office, no longer escorted they race back to deliver the news to commander Ablitano, and join the attack. Reviewing once again the pictures and information of this mysterious ship, he thinks to himself, _At least this is not some Cylon plot to destroy the colonies or something._ Issuing the orders for the Gunstar and Battlestar to join Titan, pouring a drink from one of his favorite Ambrosia from Caprica, taking it all in one gulp, he pours another. Admiral Nagala the commander of the Colonial fleet, hoped that he was wrong and that the Cylons did not plant a base in the middle of colonial territory, thereby sending some young men and women to their early deaths.

**Battlestars Titan, War Maiden and Gunstar Omicron two hours later ready to jump to SDF-1**

When War Maiden and Omicron jumped in to Titans position to say that Commander Ablitano was disappointed would be a misnomer. True he was disappointed that he didn't receive a larger force to handle the pirates, but with the addition of a second Battlestars vipers and the main guns of a Gunstar. Many would surrender to the show of force.

Final preparations were made, and agreed upon by the commanders of all three ships in agreement of how they would surround the pirate base. Whilst the final countdown for their operation began Ablitano made one final change to the plan; it was to send out six raptors with ECCM packages and long-range missiles to blind the pirates Dradis, and cover any escaping craft paths. Sending the Raptors in thirty seconds before the ships jumped in would cause confusion for the pirates giving them time to launch vipers to take care of how many of the strange fighter craft that they had.

As the jump clock counted down the crews of the three ships experienced some form of anxiety and nervousness. Viper pilots, some of whom have never flown in battle showed their dread in the useless chatter, while others paced back and forth in their briefing rooms, hoping that they would not have to die this day.

Reaching thirty seconds on the countdown clock the ECCM Raptors jump into the vicinity of the mysterious ship. The sight they saw, the giant blue and white ship that looked like nothing ever made in the Colonies, astonished these crews. Then, as their Dradis start picking up the unbelievable amount of small craft orbiting the unknown ship. Realizing they were woefully underprepared for this dance when the numbers continue to rise first a hundred, then two, and at last causing the Dradis to err out when the number surpasses its tracking ability. Too stunned to react, they forget to setup the ECCM blanking originally planned to use in blinding the crew of SDF-1. The three ships of the colonial fleet jump in thirty seconds later, and at that time, no fewer than eighteen Valkyries surrounded the six raptors.

The three commanders pause in shock at the display of craft, as that both Battlestars have only a hundred and forty Vipers among the two of them. Still believing they could make the pirates stand down Commander Ablitano orders the pirate ship to stand down and be boarded due to illegal operations or be prepared to be fired upon. Another shock to the colonials systems was when the unknown ship launched another three hundred fighter craft as a defensive measure.

The colonials and SDF-1 were in a tense standoff, both had launched their fighters who squared off with each other. SDF-1 having a numerical advantage in fighters, while the colonials doubted that anything as large as the SDF-1 could have armor thick enough to withstand an alpha strike from all three.

Ablitano going over the wireless once again and ordering the giant of a ship to heave to and be prepared to be boarded due to illegal operations. Luckily, by this time Dr. Lang, ENS. Porter and some of the language professors from the college on Macross had managed compiled an passible real time voice translation software that was used to respond back to them. It wasn't perfect as no language is the first few times you speak it, but it at least managed to stave off the possibility of a fight between the two.

Admiral Gloval responded back to Commander Ablitano in his cool formal manner, which halted the furtherance of hostilities. "Commander Ablitano, this is Admiral Gloval of the U.N. Space Ship SDF-1. We are not pirates and will not comply with your order of standing down. We are here by an accident of our FTL drive and mean no harm. Recall your fighter craft and we will do the same."

In Titan's CIC Ablitano heard the wireless receive the fractured message. "Ablitano command of. SDF-won of UN space this is Gloval Admiral. We of ship pirate's non-solo. Non complicit with orders of down standing. Accident of drive, harm not meant. Do same fighter craft recall."

Looking at his XO in confusion from the message he says, "What in the Gods name is this frak! This sounds like a kid trying to speak instead of some pirate. Anyone have an idea of what they mean?"

"George there is the possibility that they are truly are alien creatures that haven't a clue how to speak our language. So far it sounds to me that they are trying to protect themselves and they might recall their fighters if we recall ours."

"Ok, I can believe that it might be possible. But real aliens? That's the stuff of science fiction, just like lasers and talking animals. That is ju…" He's interrupted again by another message from the alien ship.

"Command of Titan Ablitano, we mean harm not. Respond please, something happen before wrong."

"Maybe they are the supposed 'Thirteenth tribe'."

Taking a second before responding he mouths 'Yeah right, Thirteenth tribe' back to his XO as he picks up the handheld receiver. "This is Commander George Ablitano of the Titan; I will order the recall of my Vipers, except my alert wing if you will do the same."

The crew of SDF-1 listening to the response from Titan all visibly relaxed as they heard the requirement for stand-down. Looking towards the Admiral for permission to recall the fighters, he gives a nearly imperceptible nod to Lisa. "All squadrons this is SDF-1, all squadrons except Skull return to the ship. I say again, all squadrons except Skull return to the ship. We have reached a temporary agreement with the aliens."

"Commander prepare a video channel to converse with the Titan's CO, hopefully we can get some amicable agreement if we can see face to face.

Unfortunately, the colonial ships were unable to use video transmissions, they continued to where they were at a point, though limited in conversation most thing that were discussed without any major confusion.

The three commanders almost forgot the time limit set by Admiral Nagala, until Commander Hayes brought up the question of that these three ships were the sum of their fleet or there was more. Ablitano sent back the response raptor back to fleet headquarters with the needed stand-down codes, thereby preventing an attack with on the peoples of SDF-1 by more forces of the Colonial military.

Once a further working relationship between the two cultures was established, an exchange of information, first including general histories of both peoples and some basic scientific principles were exchanged. One of the key points exchanged was the theory of the jump drive for the colonies, though limited in the distance that the Hyperspace-Fold drive could achieve. It had the advantage of being nowhere as large and achieving a point-to-point transfer within their range, with a lower power per mass requirement.

Admiral Gloval and Dr. Lang both saw and advantage in the possibility of putting one on the Valkyries. With the possibility of giving the Valkyries, a point-to-point jump capability allowing for rapid strike capabilities against enemy forces. It would take some time, but Dr. Lang assured the Admiral that it would be possible and that they could even possibly upgrade the range with some specialized computing, as well as increasing the durability of the drives themselves. The exchange was not one way as a few things that the Earthers' did surprised the colonials, such as man portable lasers, and powered suits as well as when they found out that the Earth humans had only really been in space for the last forty odd years. Accomplishing things at a faster pace than the Colonies had in the last two thousand years, with a ferocity that was surprising and almost very scary.

A delegation selected among the command staff of SDF-1 with the Governor of the former island and Commander Ablitano went to meet with the Colonial President Adar, high-ranking members of the cabinet and the Admiralty to further open relations and possibly request assistance for the crew of the ship with food stocks and select materials needed for repairs.

The first few pleasantries exchanged between the two groups along with introductions all around. When Admiral Corman asked which of the colonies they descended from, Dr. Lang answered that they were not from this area of space and that currently they were lost. The automatic response to SDF-1's crew was that everyone was from the Twelve Colonies, and that there was no other life in the galaxy so they must obviously be from one of the colonies. Both Commander Hayes and Dr. Lang laughed at thought that the universe was devoid of life, pointing out that they were proof of life being from the planet Earth. Every colonials jaw dropped when that statement was heard, learning that the ship and crew were from Earth, something that many of those in the conference room once held in belief as a myth.

The priest went on to explain that all humans were descended from those originally from the planet Kobol and should worship the Gods of Kobol as is required, unless they garner the wrath of those gods; Dr. Lang said that they were foolish to believe an outlandish statement at least one such as that without irrefutable proof. Then he proceeded to show them evidence from the fossil record and evidence of humanity evolving on Earth for some two million years. Not just arriving some four thousand as the divergence of the thirteenth tribe from the rest were told in the Sacred scrolls scripture as well as some of the ruins of past civilizations were older than the history of the colonies. He did acquiesce that their might have been a thirteenth tribe that did depart Kobol in the past, but there was no record of any advance culture every arriving on Earth.

Angered by his statements, some of the more religious members of the cabinet demanded that he be tried and hung for insulting the true knowledge of the Sacred Scrolls of Kobol. Then as well that the people of SDF-1 submit to rule of the colonies, as it was the right to rejoin their brothers and sisters to follow the wiser rule of the colonies. Commander Hayes, the Governor and Dr. Lang scoffed at such a suggestion. This was something that no one on Earth would submit to; the peoples of Earth would fight tooth and nail against anyone that would try to force their will upon them. Then the Governor proceeded to tell them if they didn't pull their collective heads out of each other's' asses and actually stop spewing this drivel and start thinking. When in fact, the reality and truth of what was true, was staring at them in their face; they would leave and continue repairs until they could effectively leave the star systems of the Colonies, and would destroy anyone that so much as tried to push their will or force themselves upon them.

When they heard this, both Commander Hayes and Admirals Nagala and Corman interceded to prevent the possibility of hostilities breaking out. With the Admirals telling all to quiet down, take a moment to cool off and actually discuss the practical reasons both parties were here. The humans from Earth asking for assistance in making effective repairs to their ship with the possibility to obtain accurate star charts of their current position in space. Without those two things, they could not leave. President Adar asked, "Why should we give you those things when you will not submit to my authority as president of the colonies and all humanity?"

The Governor staring incredulity at him, and once again begin getting visibly angry at the sheer audacity of President Adar. He was about to retort to the stupidity of his statement when CDR. Hayes grabbed his hand and began to coolly respond to the question. "Mr. President, we did not mean to intrude upon your territory and cause an incident for you or your people. However, now we ask of your people to assist us in departing without causing further troubles for you. If you would graciously grant us the needed supplies and assistance to speed up our repairs we will gladly instruct your peoples in the few things that we can show examples of as well as some examples of technology for your gracious help."

Adar always the opportunist, rubbing his chin in thought, was beginning to like the idea of getting his hands on some of the interesting technology from Earth. With a little proof of their existence, he could solidify the voting blocs and get elected once again to the presidency. At last, he spoke up, "Alright, I will agree to assisting you with the things that you need to leave the colonies. Before you leave here you'll have the most current star charts. Nevertheless, I want the things that you promised prior to you getting back to your ship. If not, no deal with anything else, understood?" Smiling as if he was the cat with the canary caught in his paws.

Lisa gave both the Governor and Dr. Lang a look that they would abide by this, even though it was not the ideal situation, it would still allow them to begin their journey home. That compromise was that the colonies would give all the star charts that they had whilst the SDF-1 would give a Battleoid, one Valkyrie, and examples of the laser weapon systems. Those present could not believe that a singular planet as primitive as Earth could make them prior to the colonies who were experimenting on the concept for the last hundred years. The meeting concluded with the agreement and delivery of the star charts needed by SDF-1.

On the trip back up to orbit they saw the Omicron pulling into orbit, with what was expected to be the promised examples of Earth technology. Both Lisa and Dr. Lang opened the star charts on the provided computron tablet. Searching for the closest reference pulsar to the colonies, Dr. Lang first frowned, and then searched for the next one and another; disappointment grew when he saw the period and rotational frequency of each of them against the ones that were known from earth and the explorer missions. He was able to recognize two pulsars from their own charts. Taking a little bit longer to understand the data, Lisa showed the same look of disappointment as well. The Governor not really understanding why they were looking disappointed when they should be happy to have their information and to soon receive the needed material and help asked why they were so concerned.

Dr. Lang then proceeded to explain in as simplistic a term that he could understand. "There are a few pulsars that we recognized from this data." The questioning look the doctor was given; he went on, "Each pulsar gives out a radio burst in certain frequencies, though you have to have one of the poles pointed in your direction to use as a navigational reference. The ones that we have on this list are ones that we have never seen before. What we do have is the core of the Milky Way and other distant pulsars and galaxy cores along with a few that might match what we do know, but most are unknown in this data gained from the Colonials. This shows that at least we are still in the Milky Way, but we are somewhere on the other side where we do not have any current information."

"Then why can't we fold back to earth then?"

"The reason is that we do not have enough reliable data, and the last thing you want to do is jump across the galactic core. Even though we did that to get here, it is not a safe thing to do as everything is moving far faster than the outer arms of the galaxy." Sighing as he saw the blank look on the Governors face, he continued. "We could end up in a black hole or something else, so we will have to take the slow route until we can find more references. The closer to home we get the more accurate of a fold we can make. Is that clear enough for you Governor?" With a nod from him, Dr. Lang went on to contemplate other things that they would need resolved if they were ever to leave and return home safely. One big question that his mind could not comprehend was the how and why there were humans here, along with how the SDF-1 managed to get here without destroying itself, was something that he and many a scientist would ponder for years to come.

The two repair yard ships came out to assist the SDF-1 with repairs and the requested materials after the colonial government was satisfied with the equipment transferred. Along with the Battlestar Titan to remain on station, with the requirement to keep a mindful eye on the new visitors providing security to the techs in case something wrong was to happen.

Repairs to the main power runs going to the Fold drive and secondary power runs from the Fusion and Protoculture reactors were made with additional protective measures. However without enough of the rare elements that made the original power converters and casing for the Fold units they were going to be limited in range for fold without accurate positioning. Other supplies and repairs were made as well. Foodstuffs, medicines, construction materials and at last armor plating was brought and stored to ensure a hopefully uneventful journey back towards Earth.


End file.
